As the first quarter of the century continues to slip by quickly, the expectations of consumers, end-users and stakeholders continue to rise with the advent of new technologies and methods of using them. For federal or state government departments and the organisations they fund, it can be difficult to keep up with these changes, even though they are expected to stay ahead of technology more than any other non-government entity.
Thankfully, with Swift Digital’s marketing automation platform, any sized government department can be prepared for the present and the future, as well as accurately determine what their users expect and what they will want in the times ahead. Here’s how:
Marketing Automation
Swift’s marketing automation software allows you to implement actions that are triggered when your end-users perform specific behaviours, or when specific dates or milestones are reached. Automation allows you to create a centralised and integrable hub for marketing and communication to stakeholders and end-users, as well as seamlessly creating user journeys, all of which are compliant with Australian anti-spam and privacy laws and your departmental policies.
Swift Digital’s suite of tools all incorporate marketing automation, allowing you to automate email and SMS communications, manage events, hone landing pages and mobile apps, deliver online surveys and then measure the engagement results of all these. This saves time and money, as well as meets the expectations of end-users.
Email Marketing
With our email marketing software, you’ll have the ability to create impressive mobile-optimised emails, newsletters, campaigns and other communications with minimal effort. We offer a simple drag-and-drop email builder and a selection of stunning templates, but this doesn’t mean your creativity will be limited – on the contrary, you’ll have the ability to send personalised automated emails that include a huge number of features, including but not limited to:
Social media integration – link readers to your social media pages or include social media posts within emails.
Embed videos – add YouTube videos within your emails
Polls / surveys – add interactive and engaging polls to your emails and receive instant feedback.
Google Maps – embed Google Maps based on address and set the zoom level of your choice.
Quicklinks – auto-generate one or more article titles that link to the articles when clicked.
Summarised articles with “read more” link – add one or more articles to your emails that expand within the email when the ‘read more’ link is clicked.
Share and forward functions – add the ability for your readers to share or forward an entire email or individual article via email or social media.
Archives – add links that allow readers to view archives of past publications.
Our email marketing features also include the ability to:
- Add editable subscription forms to your websites
- Use time and task-triggered automation
- Utilise A/B testing to discover which methods work the best
- Segment contact databases to send personalised emails
- Ability to optimise your subject lines and copy
Our highly secure email marketing platform uses Australian-based data servers, protecting the data of you and your end-users.
Event Management
Our event management software allows you to plan and execute amazing government event registration processes from the one platform. Our software starts working for you from the moment you decide to start promoting your event, then streamlines and improves the whole process all the way through to check-in. The entire process of organising your conferences, seminars, workshops or other events is centralised with our cloud-based, secure platform. Some of the features of our event management software include:
- Beautiful templates and simple drag and drop editors for emails, event registration forms and micro-sites.
- Personalised automated emails and invites that can be tracked for opens, clicks and registrations.
- Gorgeous micro-sites for your event
- Exclusive invitations that can be sent to a select group from your database
- Manage all information (such as registrations, cancellations, declines etc) from one dashboard and easily integrate with existing CRM software if desired.
- Waitlists that can be created when registrations reach full capacity
- Automated SMS reminders, notifications and alerts
- Payment gateway on micro-site or links within emails if payments required
- Automated feedback from attendees
- And more!
Method 3 – Survey for Understanding Unsubscribers
This survey has been around for quite a long time and it simply asks people who are unsubscribing why they are doing so. It uses survey responses such as ‘I never signed up’ or ‘I no longer want to receive these emails’ and the unsubscriber simply ticks whichever reason is applicable. If you have no access to edit your unsubscribe survey questions, it’s definitely worth scrutinising the analytics for the main reasons your customers are unsubscribing. Knowing why they are leaving can tell you what email content you need to create / include or what to leave out.
If you do have access to edit your unsubscribe survey, asking the below survey questions alongside the regular ones may help you retain those customers by altering their decision to unsubscribe and they will definitely help you learn the deeper reasons behind why they are leaving. Here are the questions and reasons why they should be asked:
‘The information/deals were not as good as expected’ or ‘There are not as many savings as I expected’ – when people sign up with a particular expectation, they’ll leave in droves if you don’t meet those! It’s really important to list everything customers can expect before they sign up. If you get this response a lot, consider upping your promotions to meet expectations but don’t make promises you can’t keep.
‘Your products/services are too expensive’ – Again, don’t set up false expectations. Review your prices if this is a common reason.
‘Your emails are too long’ – This is pretty self-explanatory, but it may not always be about the length of emails, but about the placement of the interesting content.
‘Your emails don’t work on my mobile’ – If you’re getting this reason, it’s time to check your emails on as many devices as possible to make sure they are visible and have working links.
‘I’m not unsubscribing, just changing my email address’ – this really should be made an available option long before anyone clicks the unsubscribe button, but it does happen quite a bit and knowing this is the reason would definitely ease some of your worries.
‘I no longer have a need for your services/products’ – It’s always a good idea to have a text box to allow the customer to clarify why this is selected. This is another opportunity to improve your product range, content or services offered by following up with an email asking what products/services the customer would have liked to see from you.
Finally, it’s a really good idea to offer the option of changing the way in which you communicate with your customers. This may be as simple as offering a different email frequency to your subscribers, such as a weekly / monthly summary email instead of daily. Email exhaustion is getting more common and this can be a simple step to avoid an unsubscribe. Another option you can offer to unsubscribers is to instead follow you on social media. You can do this by saying something like: “we understand you may not want your inbox clogged up with our emails and that’s no problem. How about following us on FaceBook / Twitter / LinkedIn instead so that you can just drop by when you’re in the mood to hear from us?”. Your best bet to reduce unsubscribes though is to prevent it long before it happens using strategies like marketing automation, so give Swift a call today and let us help you keep your existing customers, as well as attracting new ones.
Landing Pages
With Swift Digital’s landing page software, you can easily create stunning interactive and secure web pages that are guaranteed to engage stakeholders and end users, as well as allowing you to track activity and increase conversions. Our easy drag and drop page builder makes the creation process as easy as building an email, meaning you can quickly automate campaigns and events and build user journeys. Features include but are not limited to:
- A fantastic drag & drop builder to easily build mobile optimised pages and add other pages for a micro-site.
- Amazing non-restrictive templates
- A huge number of call-to-action forms and buttons for subscriptions, feedback, leads etc.
- Interactive features such as video, calendars, social media links, polls, maps, RSVPs etc.
- Fully automated features based on behaviour
- Track key date and metrics in campaigns
Online Surveys
Give the power to the people using our easy-to-create online surveys to gather valuable data from your end-users or stakeholders. Whether you want a simple poll or a more complex survey to gather opinions and feedback, our software can help you create the right questions, encourage participation and analyse results in a number of ways. Some of the features include:
- Customised mobile-optimised templates to create easy-to-use surveys that give impressive response rates
- 15 question types using branch logic to ensure surveys are uncluttered for respondents
- Data saving and ability to resume surveys for respondents
- Ability to make responses anonymous or tracked
- Distribute surveys via landing page (custom subdomain), email or download
- Excel, HTML or PDF reports to analyse raw data or visual charts
- Ability to set open/close dates
- Signatory box for compliance, permission and approval sign-offs
- Automated emails upon completion.
Mobile and SMS
Our mobile and SMS platform allows you to send personalised messages to your end-users and stakeholders as part of your automated marketing and communication solutions. Whether you’re sending reminders, updates, alerts, automated replies, account information or any other message, our tier-one mobile gateway means you’ll be able to broaden your communications in a reliable and timely manner. Features include:
- Unlimited branded messages can be personalised and sent easily from the one console
- Send event-triggered messages to groups or individuals based on activity or time
- Dedicated number for replies and ability to send messages as ‘no reply’ or ‘reply’
- Automatic unsubscribe option to comply with legal regulations
- Instant activity reports
Engagement Scoring
Our engagement scoring software allows you to monitor and analyse information from all of our services, allowing you to determine which of your end-users are engaged and which methods are working better than others. Each of your end-users and stakeholders has a unique engagement score that is updated each time they communicate with you or interact with your pages, emails, events etc. Having access to this comprehensive data will allow you to hone the way you communicate with your audience, ensuring your messages are getting to the right people in the right format at the right time. Our easy-to-use features include but are not limited to:
- The ability to analyse the engagement scores of individuals across multiple channels
- The ability to track your choice of activities and determine what their engagement score values are (i.e., assigning different scores to registrations, opens, clicks etc)
- Create segments based on things like engagement levels or other factors and send highly targeted communications based on this
- See stakeholder, end-user or employee engagement and make changes based on the response of your segments
- Identify highly engaged or disengaging individuals and send targeted campaigns to them based on these statuses, stopping problems before they grow
- Export data to mailing lists or Excel
High Security for Government Services
The ability to automate marketing and communications initiatives from one place is obviously highly appealing to government services, but many of our past clients have told us they hesitated due to concerns about security and data privacy. When you work with Swift Digital though, you know you’re working with a company who understands your concerns and can meet all of your needs. Our software and services are highly secure and include the following features:
- All of our data servers are located in Australia
- We are fully compliant with Australian privacy and anti-spam laws
- We have gained government accreditation in many states
- We have a high level of experience working with government organisations and have been working with some of the country’s largest federal and state government organisations, banks, and universities since 2001!
If you require a secure, affordable and easy-to-use marketing automation platform, give the friendly team at Swift Digital a call.
The Preferred Email, Events and SMS Automation Software For All Australian Government Departments
Swift Digital’s templates help you effortlessly create stunning emails and events communications using our drag-and-drop email and event builder.
You can raise engagement with embedded images, videos, polls, article feedback, and emojis and schedule messages to send at the right time.
Government departments’ unique marketing requirements are covered with Swift Digital, and full compliance with all anti-spam and privacy laws is guaranteed. Swift Digital is also ISO 27001 certified.
Swift Digital is Australia’s leader in marketing automation software and event management working with organisations like the NSW Government, ATO, and companies like Westpac Bank and Qantas.
Find out why we’re the Australian government department’s number one choice for their professional communications and events.
To find out how your business can get the best out of Swift Digital’s platform, contact our team today.
Don’t forget to share this post!
